The stone walkway may be 2.5 feet at its narrowest point. The shore line is 7-8 feet down from the walkway. It’s narrow, it is a ways down and I’m always wary. I must have been daydreaming. Or better stated, distracted by day-work-worrying.

I’m on my morning run.

My right forearm slams into the end of the steel I-beam guard rail. Here it comes. A car crash in slow motion. A Bruce Lee flick. With much less grace. The I-beam doesn’t move. But it moves me. It spins me around. Full Stop. Drop. Roll. Air explodes out of my chest. I’m gasping for air. More stunned than hurt. I’m down flat on my back for a few seconds, grateful that I didn’t plunge into the mud and frigid waters in the bay. I look around to see if anyone caught the show. No one is yelling “Man Down. Man Down.” We’re clear. Pride intact. [Read more…]

6:15 am. I finish up my blog posts. Finish bantering with Mimi. I pan through the Weather app on my iPhone for a temperature report on my set locations: Miami 61 F/78 F. Sunny. Sydney 67/81. San Diego 54/65. Home: 29 F/41 F. (Brrrrrrr. I shiver. Do I really want to do this? Maybe I should wait until later this afternoon when temps climb. Come on. Who are you kidding? If it doesn’t happen RIGHT NOW, it’s not going to happen pal…you know that.)

6:20 am: I put on sweatpants, sweatshirt and grab baseball cap. (Mind is chattering… should I drape myself in layers…thermal underwear and thermal undershirt…and Tuke/Beanie. Are you kidding? A mere 29°. A Canadian, last time I checked. Man-up.)

6:24 am: Grab headphones, iPhone and Garmin GPS watch. (Notice that I have 1 bar of power left on Garmin and 2 bars on iPhone. Irritated. Irritating. Hundreds of dollars of e-equipment and they can’t hold a charge for more than a few hours. Yep, good one – Gadget Man is blaming battery life. Be grateful. Thanksgiving. Day of Sabbath. And I’m sniping.) [Read more…]

This photo was taken on my run this morning. Yes, I know, “Amateur hour” and completely unremarkable (borderline trash). I took me a bit to post it as my mind raced to the incredible photographers that I follow and the word association games that I play to keep going…Bill Pevlor (Mother Earth)…Tracie Louise (Surreal)…David Wetzel (Photographer, Painter, Writer), Robert Santafede (Pause), Vicky Taylor-Hood (Home)…and many others I’ve neglected to mention.

Yet, this photo is remarkable to me in other ways. Here’s the journey on the run this morning.

I set Mr. Endomondo to the workout mode of “Beat Yourself” – competing against my time from last Sunday. (Endomondo destroyed me yesterday by a whopping 3 minutes. Heat. Humidity. Excuses. Stack them up. I can’t use yesterday as a base line. That’d be cheating…)

I strap on my Garmin GPS. (You just don’t know when you’ll need the back-up.)

5:42 am. I hit the start/go buttons on my gadgets. And down the road we go. (LaDona is training for a half marathon in Victoria, B.C. The least I can do is get 5 miles in before the thermometer hits 90°F.)

I’m less than 1/2 mile out, and Endomondo tells me that I’m 16 minutes ahead of Friday’s pace. (Argggghhhhhhhh. I must have pressed the WRONG button. BAD Endomondo! Here’s exactly why you have a contingency plan.)

Beautiful morning. 66° F. So slight a breeze. Sun’s up. Birds in symphony. God couldn’t have designed it better.

Mental Check: all clear. No mist, fog or clouds. All pistons firing.

iTunes set on shuffle. 10,000+ songs rattling around.

(When did I collect so many songs, and the real question is why? Packrat. And here I am annoyed and banging on the forward button…missing the button…fat fingers…Apple’s too small screen…sweat dripping all over the iPhone…banging again…trying to cycle through the nastys to get to the gems…can’t break my stride…now sweat burning my eyes because I’m looking down to get to the right song…must be the hair gel from last night…chemicals likely peeling off my cornea…all because I can’t bear to throw anything away…or better yet, because I’m too lazy to make a playlist for running…ok…there…Santana…good beat…now pick up the pace…look up…get back in stride. Why do you get so annoyed with the little things? Now laughing at myself. Be happy you can run you idiot…)

That’s Eric and his older sister on the right – Eric was 1 and Rachel was 3 years old at the time. Picture warms my heart. (Surreal. I stare at the picture. Seems like yesterday. Where did the time go?)

More than 15 years after this picture is taken, I’m watching the two of them giggling watching a YouTube video. (There is something about two siblings being so close. I’m MOVED to see it and feel it – Blood loving blood.)

Rachel later eggs me on to post some lighter moments of Eric’s early childhood. Here we go:

Your wallet is no longer the only item worth protecting with all sorts of personal and financial data on your smartphone readily available to thieves. Guess what I did with my personal phone after reading this article…

“…Symantec organized a multi-city clandestine project to see what happens when digital devices go missing…A total of 50 smartphones were distributed (purposefully lost) in 5 cities in restaurants, elevators, convenience stores and student unions. The devices were loaded with a buffet of juicy, fake data…Symantec tracked where the devices were taken once found, and what type of information was accessed by the “finders.”

“Many smartphone owners don’t take even simple steps, like requiring a PIN to unlock a phone…

“About 90% of all finders rifled through the phone’s apps and files, including ones that seemed to contain highly sensitive information.”

“80% looked at corporate data on the phone. About half took the bait to peek at the salary information and peruse the corporate email account. 40% couldn’t resist looking at the banking information. 57% looked at a password file…”